We entered Cambodia through the notorious land border Poi Pet, known for its shady scams and dodgy sales staff, Sam had prepped me to let him sort the visas and not freak out if his pointing finger ‘you’re lying’ face came on. All the guidebooks and internet reading tells you of the fake buildings and fake security staff in place, supposedly helping you with your visas and quick route into Cambodia, however what will happen is you will be over charged, money taken and still be waiting in the long line with all the other weary travelers and locals passing through. We managed to make it off the bus, our bus driver being so lovely and in his broken English pointing at the actual border control offices, as the scam men started to surround us demanding our time and notes, we pushed through no finger pointing but lots of no no no, NO THANKYOU. We got to the border control and even there the guards tried their luck, stating they needed an extra few $’s to put our visas through, at this Sam informed them, no sorry, we don’t have it and with a few exchanged words our visas were processed and we were in the queue crossing to Thailand, phew.
We caught the bus to Siem Reap to meet lovely Ash and Mike, the journey wasn’t too bad apart from the fact we found out just before getting on the bus our friends had gone into labour, meaning the whole bus journey was a panic of if they were okay and how the labour was going. We somehow managed to get 10 seconds of internet at a random service stop and a beautiful picture of baby Heidi came through, we were over whelmed with emotion and both were teary eyed at the happiness we felt our besties had a brood but sadness at feeling so far away when such a special moment was occurring.
We arrived into Siem Reap in standard SE Asia fashion with the bus turning into a dark dodgy bus terminal and a 100 tuk tuks awaiting our arrival, we bartered a price and then got on our way to our hotel. When we arrived we were greeted by the lovely smiles of our Canadian friends and instantly felt at home in their embrace. The evening was spent settling into Siem Reap and making plans for the next few days, M&A had already been in Siem Reap for a few days and had bought the 3 day tickets to Angkor Wat, we knew we only wanted to do the one day, as with the one day you also get the previous evening, meaning we would buy our tickets the following day at 5pm, have that evening and the whole of the next day. M&A informed us they had done the two outer routes of Angkor but had saved the big temples for us for our full day together. So with plans made we enjoyed the rest of the evening on ‘pub street’ drinking lots of wine, local 30p beer and a lot of good chats with two very good friends, we missed the fact a river of rain had flooded the streets and when we emerged from the bar at 3am we fell into a puddle and stumbled into a tuk tuk. We awoke the next morning with fuzzy heads and happy thoughts, I woke up earlier than the rest so went for a nice swim and enjoyed the morning sunshine on my back, after my swim I went and enjoyed breakfast catching up on my diary and filling in my last few days of Thailand. Soon the others joined me and we arranged a lazy day in Siem Reap before Sam and I hired some bikes and went for our evening cycle to Angkor.
We arrived at Angkor spot on 5pm, we got our faces snapped and our tickets purchased and set out without any real plan, not planning to go in any temples, more just enjoy the cycle of what was to come and find a spot to watch sunset. I had no idea what I expected of Angkor and after being at Bagan (Burma) I had a similar image in my mind of the temples being smaller and quite similar and had no understanding of the distance between them all, some are miles away in a taxi (the outer route). It was great to get a feel of the place before our main day and we nestled on a bridge at the end of the day to enjoy sunset. We headed back that night, prepared for our voyage into the mystic temples the following day, we chose to have a quieter night then the previous, meeting with a friend from home who was in Siem Reap also, we enjoyed a feast of Khmer curry’s and a few beers, oh and some tasty tea, heading to bed with full tummy’s ready for a 5am sunrise jaunt.
We woke super early and were greeted by Mr Thom (who soon become Uncle Thom) for our days adventure, we chose to take a tuk tuk for the day at Angkor as our plan was to do sunrise to sunset and knew on bikes we wouldn’t make it, plus the sun gets so blazing hot at midday we wanted the shade of the tuk tuk and not the blistering heat on our faces. Uncle Thom was a total sweetie, he told us our route for the day, thankfully what we had planned and how he would drop us at each temple and wait for us as we explored. We joined the procession of tuk tuks and tourists and were dropped at Angkor Wat, the main temple in Angkor, everyone heads here for sunrise so as we entered it was slight chaos, everyone heads to the lake to watch sunrise, as the reflection of Angkor in the lake is spectacular, however it becomes a ipad, iphone photograph hell and for this reason we headed right as everyone to the grassy garden. We had our lovely trusty Indian blanket so put that down and settled ourselves for the morning, at that point Ash said ‘wouldn’t it be great to have a coffee’ with that James Bond (yep that was his name) came over with a list of coffee and promised he would bring it to us for our morning view. With coffee and comfort we were ready for a beautiful morning, or so we thought, sunrise was spectacular but sadly we had a child learning there ABC and was playing a very strange song out of his parents iphone, it did stop after a while but did leave us all laughing at such a random situation at such a beautiful spot. The joy of iphones and music, my definite travelling pet hate! We didn’t let it spoil our time though and managed to smile through it and embrace the beauty of what we were experiencing in front of us.
Angkor Wat temple completely blew my mind and I was completely in awe of the beauty before me, Mike and I both had our guides/temple books which I would recommend to anyone visiting the temples, the books tell of all the bas reliefs (carvings/stories) engraved into the walls, stories of life times ago, wars, dietys and religious beliefs, they tell the tales of suffering and change and you can see the new carvings from the old, you can see where there has been change when the Khmer people left the Angkor complex and the temples were changed from Hindu to Buddhist carvings. For me the most beautiful carvings were the Apsara depictions, beautiful images of women nymphs/pixies saturated the walls, there were a number of similar images but everywhere the images embraced and flowed in groups and singular elements of these incredible women. I hadn’t ever heard the term Apsara but Mike soon explained they were seen to men as goddess and were worshipped for their beauty, I chose to do some further reading when home and loved the description of female spirits of the clouds and water, and they are youthful, elegant and superb in the art of dancing. How could these women not be respected and worshipped these mythical goddess sounded heavenly. Some of my other favourite carvings were the Rishis, Hindu sages, the representations was of old wise men, crossed legged like Buddha, with a long beard, looking wise and calm in his posture and positioning. My favourite statues led to a lot of laughs (and slight sex education lessons), these statues were the lungi and yoni, now some back history on yonis. I recently completed a course around feminist studies and working with vulnerable women, in this course we talked about what we called our lady parts and everyone had their hilarious name we all learnt as children. We were asked how we felt saying the word out loud and every one of us felt uncomfortable with the word, mine being ‘fairy’ which has always left me feeling awkward as I become obsessed with flower fairy’s and the magical world of fairy’s throughout my younger years and early twenty’s, therefore using the word fairy to describe my vagina and my best friend just felt wrong. After this course I chose a new word and one I would teach my child, that being yoni, so to see this word used to describe the fertility statues in Angkor Wat led me to informing M&A and Sam about my story of a change up in words. I went off on a wander around one of the temples to find one of these statues and joined a Chinese tour group as it was explained to them what they were, now this was amusing, as the tour guide poured the water and said some proactive words that made the ladies giggle and the men groan. The belief with the statues is that at one time the Khmer people poured water over the top of the lungi, the water then flowed into the yoni and out through a drainage system that led outside the temple, the people living outside the temple could then collect the water, drink it and wish for good fertility. It just made my mind spin how everything has such meaning and beauty wherever you step and wander.
After 4hrs we exited Angkor Wat, hungry for breakfast and amazed at the humble amble we had just experienced. Our next stop was Bayon, we were welcomed by the most beautiful elephant trudging along, sadly carrying tourists on its back but the beauty of an elephant a few steps in front of us was stupefying and I couldn’t help but let out a small gasp of excitement seeing its beautiful face and outstanding stature. Bayon is a world of difference from Angkor Wat but just as magnificent and jaw dropping. I believe Bayon was built 80yrs after Angkor Wat by a new Khmer King, from far away the temple looks a pile of rubble but as you come closer it becomes a mass of smiling faces that at first glance could represent the familiarity of Buddha but when reading I learnt the images were to represent the Kings face, spread across 47 towers the faces envelope the towers, supposedly representing the 47 provinces in Cambodia at that time, the king watching down on all, creepy right? For me Bayon was a beauty but did hold a gothic eeriness and when learning about the kings faces I soon felt I understood why. Like Angkor, Bayon did have bas reliefs also which we attempted to understand but parts of the temple walls had fell into disrepair which was part of the beauty of this ruined attraction.
Bayon is situated in the Angkor Thom complex; therefore we wondered the rest of the complex, enjoying various smaller temples and the terrace of elephants. We took a rest with a group of local boys who were playing in one of the pools and I enjoyed being splashed as they ran and jumped in front of me, giggling with excitement and happiness.
Angkor Thom means big city and it was where the Khmer people once lived when residing in the Angkor complex, for me what astounded me was that is no evidence of settlement due to the residents using wood as there means to nest and live, stone was only for the gods and that’s why the temples were stone and still stand. When reading up about the movement of the Khmer residents there is no actual understanding as to why everyone left and therefore no records of how many people lived there. Exploring these temples and once distressed lands felt enjoyable but uncomforting knowing people were maybe run out of the home, their city and moved on to places nobody knows.
We headed back to meet Uncle Thom for lunch then headed to our next stop Ta Phrom, known to all as Tomb Raider temple. Ta Phrom was what I was most excited to see, I had seen so many pictures and knew when planning this trip it was one of my top things I wanted to explore and experience and it sure didn’t disappoint. Ta Phrom is very different from the other temples as it has been left in a similar state to how it was found, piles of rubble, trees dominating the temple walls, nature taking back what belongs to it, land. The tetrameles nudiflora trees is what makes this temple so spectacular, it has literally been brought to ruins because of some of the trees, the roots engulf the insides of the temple and are beautiful to look at and photograph. We found so many nooks to climb into and climbed high as sun was coming down embracing the vast maze of ruins in front of us.
After a few hours we exited Ta Phrom, with Uncle Thom telling us we didn’t have long for sunset and he would show us one more temple, Banteay Kdei, before our chosen sunset spot, he gave us 15minutes to explore our next one, which was a quick walk through, more beautiful apsaras, doorways upon doorways to walk through, another beautiful maze in the temples of Angkor.
Like our morning jaunt we decided we didn’t want crowds of people so chose to ignore the guidance of the sunset temple and head to the kings royal bathing pool, Sra Srang to watch sunset on us. We didn’t pick wrong either as we enjoyed our time with a group of local kids, watching them play a game Sam played at cubs (therefore we learnt the rules from him), smiling and laughing like children should. As sun come down we reflected on what was an amazing day and how blessed we were to spend it together but also be on this incredible journey in this incredible place, one of the incredible wonders of our astonishing world.
We caught the bus to Siem Reap to meet lovely Ash and Mike, the journey wasn’t too bad apart from the fact we found out just before getting on the bus our friends had gone into labour, meaning the whole bus journey was a panic of if they were okay and how the labour was going. We somehow managed to get 10 seconds of internet at a random service stop and a beautiful picture of baby Heidi came through, we were over whelmed with emotion and both were teary eyed at the happiness we felt our besties had a brood but sadness at feeling so far away when such a special moment was occurring.
We arrived into Siem Reap in standard SE Asia fashion with the bus turning into a dark dodgy bus terminal and a 100 tuk tuks awaiting our arrival, we bartered a price and then got on our way to our hotel. When we arrived we were greeted by the lovely smiles of our Canadian friends and instantly felt at home in their embrace. The evening was spent settling into Siem Reap and making plans for the next few days, M&A had already been in Siem Reap for a few days and had bought the 3 day tickets to Angkor Wat, we knew we only wanted to do the one day, as with the one day you also get the previous evening, meaning we would buy our tickets the following day at 5pm, have that evening and the whole of the next day. M&A informed us they had done the two outer routes of Angkor but had saved the big temples for us for our full day together. So with plans made we enjoyed the rest of the evening on ‘pub street’ drinking lots of wine, local 30p beer and a lot of good chats with two very good friends, we missed the fact a river of rain had flooded the streets and when we emerged from the bar at 3am we fell into a puddle and stumbled into a tuk tuk. We awoke the next morning with fuzzy heads and happy thoughts, I woke up earlier than the rest so went for a nice swim and enjoyed the morning sunshine on my back, after my swim I went and enjoyed breakfast catching up on my diary and filling in my last few days of Thailand. Soon the others joined me and we arranged a lazy day in Siem Reap before Sam and I hired some bikes and went for our evening cycle to Angkor.
We arrived at Angkor spot on 5pm, we got our faces snapped and our tickets purchased and set out without any real plan, not planning to go in any temples, more just enjoy the cycle of what was to come and find a spot to watch sunset. I had no idea what I expected of Angkor and after being at Bagan (Burma) I had a similar image in my mind of the temples being smaller and quite similar and had no understanding of the distance between them all, some are miles away in a taxi (the outer route). It was great to get a feel of the place before our main day and we nestled on a bridge at the end of the day to enjoy sunset. We headed back that night, prepared for our voyage into the mystic temples the following day, we chose to have a quieter night then the previous, meeting with a friend from home who was in Siem Reap also, we enjoyed a feast of Khmer curry’s and a few beers, oh and some tasty tea, heading to bed with full tummy’s ready for a 5am sunrise jaunt.
We woke super early and were greeted by Mr Thom (who soon become Uncle Thom) for our days adventure, we chose to take a tuk tuk for the day at Angkor as our plan was to do sunrise to sunset and knew on bikes we wouldn’t make it, plus the sun gets so blazing hot at midday we wanted the shade of the tuk tuk and not the blistering heat on our faces. Uncle Thom was a total sweetie, he told us our route for the day, thankfully what we had planned and how he would drop us at each temple and wait for us as we explored. We joined the procession of tuk tuks and tourists and were dropped at Angkor Wat, the main temple in Angkor, everyone heads here for sunrise so as we entered it was slight chaos, everyone heads to the lake to watch sunrise, as the reflection of Angkor in the lake is spectacular, however it becomes a ipad, iphone photograph hell and for this reason we headed right as everyone to the grassy garden. We had our lovely trusty Indian blanket so put that down and settled ourselves for the morning, at that point Ash said ‘wouldn’t it be great to have a coffee’ with that James Bond (yep that was his name) came over with a list of coffee and promised he would bring it to us for our morning view. With coffee and comfort we were ready for a beautiful morning, or so we thought, sunrise was spectacular but sadly we had a child learning there ABC and was playing a very strange song out of his parents iphone, it did stop after a while but did leave us all laughing at such a random situation at such a beautiful spot. The joy of iphones and music, my definite travelling pet hate! We didn’t let it spoil our time though and managed to smile through it and embrace the beauty of what we were experiencing in front of us.
Angkor Wat temple completely blew my mind and I was completely in awe of the beauty before me, Mike and I both had our guides/temple books which I would recommend to anyone visiting the temples, the books tell of all the bas reliefs (carvings/stories) engraved into the walls, stories of life times ago, wars, dietys and religious beliefs, they tell the tales of suffering and change and you can see the new carvings from the old, you can see where there has been change when the Khmer people left the Angkor complex and the temples were changed from Hindu to Buddhist carvings. For me the most beautiful carvings were the Apsara depictions, beautiful images of women nymphs/pixies saturated the walls, there were a number of similar images but everywhere the images embraced and flowed in groups and singular elements of these incredible women. I hadn’t ever heard the term Apsara but Mike soon explained they were seen to men as goddess and were worshipped for their beauty, I chose to do some further reading when home and loved the description of female spirits of the clouds and water, and they are youthful, elegant and superb in the art of dancing. How could these women not be respected and worshipped these mythical goddess sounded heavenly. Some of my other favourite carvings were the Rishis, Hindu sages, the representations was of old wise men, crossed legged like Buddha, with a long beard, looking wise and calm in his posture and positioning. My favourite statues led to a lot of laughs (and slight sex education lessons), these statues were the lungi and yoni, now some back history on yonis. I recently completed a course around feminist studies and working with vulnerable women, in this course we talked about what we called our lady parts and everyone had their hilarious name we all learnt as children. We were asked how we felt saying the word out loud and every one of us felt uncomfortable with the word, mine being ‘fairy’ which has always left me feeling awkward as I become obsessed with flower fairy’s and the magical world of fairy’s throughout my younger years and early twenty’s, therefore using the word fairy to describe my vagina and my best friend just felt wrong. After this course I chose a new word and one I would teach my child, that being yoni, so to see this word used to describe the fertility statues in Angkor Wat led me to informing M&A and Sam about my story of a change up in words. I went off on a wander around one of the temples to find one of these statues and joined a Chinese tour group as it was explained to them what they were, now this was amusing, as the tour guide poured the water and said some proactive words that made the ladies giggle and the men groan. The belief with the statues is that at one time the Khmer people poured water over the top of the lungi, the water then flowed into the yoni and out through a drainage system that led outside the temple, the people living outside the temple could then collect the water, drink it and wish for good fertility. It just made my mind spin how everything has such meaning and beauty wherever you step and wander.
After 4hrs we exited Angkor Wat, hungry for breakfast and amazed at the humble amble we had just experienced. Our next stop was Bayon, we were welcomed by the most beautiful elephant trudging along, sadly carrying tourists on its back but the beauty of an elephant a few steps in front of us was stupefying and I couldn’t help but let out a small gasp of excitement seeing its beautiful face and outstanding stature. Bayon is a world of difference from Angkor Wat but just as magnificent and jaw dropping. I believe Bayon was built 80yrs after Angkor Wat by a new Khmer King, from far away the temple looks a pile of rubble but as you come closer it becomes a mass of smiling faces that at first glance could represent the familiarity of Buddha but when reading I learnt the images were to represent the Kings face, spread across 47 towers the faces envelope the towers, supposedly representing the 47 provinces in Cambodia at that time, the king watching down on all, creepy right? For me Bayon was a beauty but did hold a gothic eeriness and when learning about the kings faces I soon felt I understood why. Like Angkor, Bayon did have bas reliefs also which we attempted to understand but parts of the temple walls had fell into disrepair which was part of the beauty of this ruined attraction.
Bayon is situated in the Angkor Thom complex; therefore we wondered the rest of the complex, enjoying various smaller temples and the terrace of elephants. We took a rest with a group of local boys who were playing in one of the pools and I enjoyed being splashed as they ran and jumped in front of me, giggling with excitement and happiness.
Angkor Thom means big city and it was where the Khmer people once lived when residing in the Angkor complex, for me what astounded me was that is no evidence of settlement due to the residents using wood as there means to nest and live, stone was only for the gods and that’s why the temples were stone and still stand. When reading up about the movement of the Khmer residents there is no actual understanding as to why everyone left and therefore no records of how many people lived there. Exploring these temples and once distressed lands felt enjoyable but uncomforting knowing people were maybe run out of the home, their city and moved on to places nobody knows.
We headed back to meet Uncle Thom for lunch then headed to our next stop Ta Phrom, known to all as Tomb Raider temple. Ta Phrom was what I was most excited to see, I had seen so many pictures and knew when planning this trip it was one of my top things I wanted to explore and experience and it sure didn’t disappoint. Ta Phrom is very different from the other temples as it has been left in a similar state to how it was found, piles of rubble, trees dominating the temple walls, nature taking back what belongs to it, land. The tetrameles nudiflora trees is what makes this temple so spectacular, it has literally been brought to ruins because of some of the trees, the roots engulf the insides of the temple and are beautiful to look at and photograph. We found so many nooks to climb into and climbed high as sun was coming down embracing the vast maze of ruins in front of us.
After a few hours we exited Ta Phrom, with Uncle Thom telling us we didn’t have long for sunset and he would show us one more temple, Banteay Kdei, before our chosen sunset spot, he gave us 15minutes to explore our next one, which was a quick walk through, more beautiful apsaras, doorways upon doorways to walk through, another beautiful maze in the temples of Angkor.
Like our morning jaunt we decided we didn’t want crowds of people so chose to ignore the guidance of the sunset temple and head to the kings royal bathing pool, Sra Srang to watch sunset on us. We didn’t pick wrong either as we enjoyed our time with a group of local kids, watching them play a game Sam played at cubs (therefore we learnt the rules from him), smiling and laughing like children should. As sun come down we reflected on what was an amazing day and how blessed we were to spend it together but also be on this incredible journey in this incredible place, one of the incredible wonders of our astonishing world.
 |
| Angkor Wat |
 |
| Rishi |
 |
| Apsara and Sammy |
 |
| Bayon |
 |
| Fertility Statue |
 |
| Ta Phrom |
 |
| Ta Phrom exploring. |
 |
| Sunset at the Royal Pool. |
No comments:
Post a Comment